Page 18

chapter

nine

Save a Prayer – Duran Duran

FONTANA

Fontana went about relieving her afternoon of humiliation with a bottle of Jaime’s best Cabernet.

“Take a deep breath, swirl the wine in your mouth, then swallow.” Jaime tapped his glass against his teeth, humming the tune to American Pie . “Settles the flavor on your tongue, doesn’t it? Light as a lover’s kiss. The teasing brush of a butterfly’s wings.”

Drawing the requested air into her lungs, she let the wine trickle down her throat in a deliciously languid stream. “Umm…that’s almost as lovely as your poetry.”

“Another.”

She rolled her head to the side, realized how lopsided her grin was and tried again.

Smoother this time. More composed. A woman in control, not one who’d spent the afternoon unraveling in front of a man who— damn it —had unraveled her even more.

“Jame, you don’t have to encourage me. We’ve accomplished our mission.

I’m feeling no pain, having no worries.”

“Enough to forget what happened earlier today? You’ve only had one glass.”

Sagging against the pillows they’d spread across the floor, she nudged the pizza box with her foot and balanced her glass on her stomach.

The look on Campbell’s face, staring at her through the foggy mist, came flooding back.

Regret and hunger, those she could live with.

They at least proved he wanted her. But pity ?

The way his eyes had strayed to her leg?—

She drained her glass, sputtering when the liquid went down the wrong pipe.

Propping himself on his elbow, Jaime thumped her back. “I thought not.”

She slid lower, until her butt popped off the pillow and onto hard pine. A spank she had more than earned. “He thinks I’m some”—she coughed—“damaged woman in need of repair. Someone too…”

Complicated. She couldn’t even repeat the word to her best friend; it was too pathetic.

“You should have seen the way he looked at me. I’ve never been as mortified and mad and, oh crap, I don’t even know how to explain how awful it felt. Your fault anyway for putting ideas into my head. Sex without strings, my ass! ”

“Why didn’t you tell him, Tana? If he has the wrong idea?”

She laughed, rubbing her eyes until bright color burst behind her lids. “I thought the first precept of the pleasure principle was to leave out personal information. Last name if possible. Address and phone number at all costs.”

“I think I gave you faulty advice.” He sighed, knocking his leg against hers.

“How could I have known? In my mind, you’re in a lucky position when you honestly want sex and nothing more.

However, my darling, this is positively another case.

Something’s going on between you and Kissable True, or he never would have declined your offer. ”

“My limp?—”

“Pish-posh.” Jaime pried her hands from her face, his smile angelic innocence.

“Some trifling hitch in a beautiful woman’s step isn’t going to throw a hungry man off the treasure trail.

Saints and garlands, one hardly notices it.

He probably thinks you were injured playing softball in high school. The man’s scared of something else.”

“No, it’s more. You see...I didn’t tell him about my past, but I did. In a way.”

Jaime’s lips parted in astonishment.

Fontana jumped to her feet, paced to the kitchen and back, then stopped short when a bout of dizziness forced her to halt in front of Jaime.

“He lifted his hand to touch me, brush my hair aside. Something completely romantic, like you see in a movie. And I flinched. Big time. Uncalled-for reaction. Maybe I had a frightened expression on my face. I don’t know!

Whatever I did, it was enough. He asked if I thought he was going to hit me. Can you imagine? ”

Jaime blinked, his mouth opening, then shutting again, for once, at a loss.

She popped up on her toes, the familiar pinch in her ankle sending a rush of memory flooding back—a moment she’d never fully shared with anyone. “Of course, I said no. How foolish of you, Atlanta. How absurd. ”

Dropping his head to his hands, Jaime moaned, “Oh, dear me, dear me.”

She kicked a maroon throw pillow—one she’d snagged at a garage sale for fifty cents—into his side and searched for another. “Is that all you can say? After I made a complete fool of myself, thanks, in part, to you?”

Before Jaime could answer, a forceful knock on the door froze them in place like deer caught in the direct path of a floodlight. Startled, their gazes collided. Fontana’s pulse stuttered, then flared to life, beating eagerly beneath her skin.

Another knock. Then a deep voice calling her name.

Oh my God …it was a voice she recognized.

“Heavens,” Jaime wheezed, patting his chest, “I feel faint. Far, far more excitement than I’m used to. I may expire in this rather disorderly but charming spot.”

“You’ve got to get out of here!”

“ What ? And miss the show?”

Yanking him up by his elbow, she steered him toward the kitchen. “Out!”

“Quit pinching, quit pinching. I get the message, Miss I-Couldn’t-Care-Less . A facade, your disinterest.”

“This is what you meant by taking pleasure in life, isn’t it?” she whispered. “And I never said I was uninterested. Although, I’m not sure we like each other.”

Kicking the screen door open, she noted a fine layer of mist hovering above the border of delphinium she’d transplanted last week, raindrops plinking on the blades of St. Augustine grass she was testing in a shady spot near the porch.

Light, hardly a downpour.

She shoved Jaime outside. “Rain’s nearly stopped. You’ll be fine.”

“My jacket’s inside, and I need a ride home.” He mimed two hands on the wheel. “My car’s at the detailer.”

“Walk over to John Nelson’s. I was going to borrow his car anyway.

Tell him I fell asleep, you didn’t want to wake me.

A bracing walk will do wonders.” She slammed the door in his face and slumped against it, pressing a hand to her chest. Her heart was a hammer, wild and insistent, possibly trying to beat some sense into her.

“You didn’t even let him take his shoes?”

Heart sinking to her knees, she cracked an eye open to see Campbell’s long body filling the kitchen archway, Jaime’ s shoes dangling from his fingers, drops of rain dusting his face and neck.

He looked hungry. Impatient. Like an impelling force had sent him racing to her. Dark eyes glowing, chest rising and falling a little too fast—like he hadn’t just walked there, but run.

Was she desirable enough to be an impelling force for a man like him?

Her body went up in flames at the notion...and she found she couldn’t look away. It was, Fontana knew, the first time she had faced someone she wasn’t sure she could handle.

And that terrified her as much as it thrilled her.

As if he’d read her thoughts, his lids lowered, a muscle in his jaw ticking out a furious beat.

Without a word, Campbell strode past her and yanked the door open.

She peeked around him to see Jaime rolling up his trouser legs, dancing from one foot to the other to keep dry. A fissure of guilt unfurled in her belly, but the fever sweeping through her outweighed it.

Okay, so she was that girl—tossing friends aside the minute a man stepped into the picture.

“Your shoes, Holworth.” Campbell dug in his front pocket.

In heedless fascination, Fontana watched denim stretch over his firm butt. There was a tiny hole above the pocket, a round, ragged fascination.

She could keep her hands to herself for another minute, maybe two.

But he’d better hurry up.

He straightened, handing Jaime his car keys. “It’s the BMW parked in the Rise’s drive. Be careful, the roads are bound to be slick. Enjoy the ride. I’ll get it back sometime tomorrow. ”

Sliding the lock into place, Campbell propped his shoulder against the door, his eyes smoldering when they met hers. “Tell me now if this isn’t what you want. Before Jaime gets too far away with my keys.”

Tall and gawky—the skinniest girl in high school, all three she’d attended—she had never felt beautiful. Never. Healthy and resilient, capable, even attractive on occasion.

But never beautiful.

When Campbell True had spent his entire life focused on capturing beauty.

“That look, don’t go there. Don’t doubt how much I want you,” Campbell said, surprising her because honest admissions and one-nighters didn’t go together. “Enough to betray my thin-skinned sensibilities.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “You told Jaime you’d pick up your car tomorrow. It’s going to”—she cleared her throat—“take all night?”

Campbell valiantly fought a smile, and she didn’t know whether to be charmed or insulted. “If you want it to.”

He moved closer, and she caught his scent—earthy and masculine, like rain on a summer day, an ocean breeze whistling through sea oats. A hint of something peppery, the newest, sexiest fragrance in her universe.

He was real. Campbell True was real. And he desired her .

The realization shook her, and a fervid sigh escaped before she could contain it.

His eyes found hers, a gaze so earnest she ached. “Again, sweetheart? I didn’t hear you.”

“I want all night. I want you .”

She was in his arms before she took another breath. Contact. Knee to knee, hip to hip. A startling fusion.

“Say my name,” he whispered, his control ebbing. “I’d like to hear it once before I take you.”

Need and want bubbled, threatening to erupt—a primal, passionate explosion that had been gathering force since he’d pulled his car off a deserted country road and stumbled into her life.

Or she’d stumbled into his.

“Campbell.” A hushed plea, a gratifying sound of impatience. A command. “ Campbell .”